Antoinette Brim

Psalm of the Sunflower is a fairly new poetry collection by Author Antoinette Brim. Brim’s mastery of the English language and ability to manipulate its nuances is beyond reproach. For instance, her poem “Falling” makes readers re-think their abuse of clichés that are often simply taken for granted without any second thought. In “Fall,” the word, defined with each of its negative connotations, is set opposite its use in the phrase to “fall in love.”

Her poems of love and death are easily accessible to any demographic and most individuals at some point in their life. Several of her poems, for instance “A Glimpse of Minnie” and “For Teresa,” perfectly capture the emotions of grief and morning; “I send rain to soften grief. ” It’s as though you have to embrace pain fully in order to let it go. Her denial in the death of Minnie is another common emotion felt to deal with loss, but is not as often eloquently stated; “You looked just like that the morning you died…She’s just asleep in the chair.”

Despite the diverse subjects of her poetry, Brim keeps a common tie flowing throughout the work: red. “Freedom is Red,” the roses in “A small house by the sea,” the ribbon in “Menarche,” the apple in “Eve,” the cherries (or rather the absence thereof) in “Cherry Blossom,” her mother’s red lipstick in “The Power of Red Lipstick” and other examples I have not mentioned. It makes a reader want to go back and more closely examine her works to try and discover some unknown secret in the color and it’s relationship to its opposition: blue.

Whether for the aesthetic pleasure or the deft use of poetic elements Brim’s works will have even a discerning reader coming back again and again.… (más)